This invention relates to a method of equipping a vehicle body, particularly the body of a railroad car, and a system suitable for carrying such method into practice.
Generally, equipment to be provided to the body of a railroad car and wires and tubes to be mounted therein are mostly attached to the ceiling or below the floor boards. Thus, in operations for equipping a railroad car body, the operators engaged in the operations are forcedly disposed in upwardly facing position. This has given rise to the problem that the railroad car equipping operation is low in operability and efficiency.
As means for solving this problem proposed in the prior art, a reversing system is known which comprises a pair of support rings supported by turning rollers driven by an electric motor for rotation about a horizontal center line for supporting the body of a railroad car, for example, through fixing members by the support rings located at forward and rearward end portions respectively of the car body, so that the car body can be turned over about its center line together with the rings into an upside down position when necessary to enable the operators to perform the operation of equipping the car body in downwardly facing position.
In this type of reversing system, the support rings are each formed of two semicircular halves by dividing each ring into an upper portion and a lower portion to allow a car body hung by a crane to be introduced into a position above the lower semicircular halves of the support rings to which the respective upper semicircular halves are connected, to hold the car body therebetween. The fixing members secure the car body in place in the support rings, and stays are attached to the car body to reinforce same.
The reversing system of the aforesaid construction would suffer the following disadvantages.
(1) When the body to be handled is that of a railroad car, the support rings would be large in size with a diameter of about 5 m, resulting in the reversing system itself becoming large in scale.
(2) Since the four side walls of the car body are supported at their outer surfaces, which form dressed surfaces, by the fixing members, it would be necessary to provide a protection to the outer surfaces of the four side walls.
(3) The car body is supported at the outer surfaces of the four side walls which are relatively low in strength. This would make it necessary to support each ring at least in six positions or a total of twelve positions in two rings, resulting in an increase in the number of fixing members that would be used.
(4) To avoid deformation of the car body, stays would have to be attached to the inner wall surfaces of the car body.
(5) The use of a large number of fixing members for securing the car body to the support rings and a large number of stays attached to the inner surfaces of the car body would interfere with the operations performed by the operators of equipping the car body, resulting in a limitations on the range of operation.
(6) The center of gravity of a car body is generally located in the vicinity of the floor or an underframe. However, the car body is supported by the support rings in such a manner that its geometrical center constitutes the center of its turning movement. This would require a moment of force of high magnitude to drive the car body to turn it over to reverse its position.
(7) It is necessary to use an overhead crane in the operation of mounting the car body in the support rings. This would place limitations on the layout of the plant and make it necessary to use a shed of a large scale to perform the operation of equipping the car body without any trouble.